


Late Nights in the Library

by beingheretoo



Category: Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal Series - J.M. Lee, The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Graduate School, Medieval poetry, Modern AU, Poorly Constructed Bookshelves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-19
Updated: 2021-03-22
Packaged: 2021-03-28 01:35:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30132015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beingheretoo/pseuds/beingheretoo
Summary: Two young people meet in a library and discuss medieval poetry, the concept of time, and proper book shelving technique.
Relationships: Brea/Kylan (Dark Crystal)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 10





	1. The Sixth Floor

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tofadeawayagain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tofadeawayagain/gifts), [orange_yarn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/orange_yarn/gifts).



> A few months ago, good friends/fellow writers tofadeawayagain and orange_yarn and I found ourselves speculating on the very important question of what our favorite characters would study in graduate school. Thus grad school AU was born, the AU that dares to ask the question _What if there was, like, a college AU but everyone’s in their mid-twenties and they all have a bunch of papers to grade?_ Thanks friends, both for daring to ask that bold question, and also for all the writerly support and general good times ;)
> 
> Anyhoo, when we were handing out custody of grad school AU characters, I got assigned this pair for some reason and now here’s this gripping tale of library adventure. It is probably the fluffiest thing I have ever written. So… enjoy, I hope? Part two is written already and I’ll probably post it Monday.

******

_Ever since the dawn of time, Gelfing have wondered about the poetry of Elri the Songteller._

Kylan sighed. He circled the words _dawn of time_ and wrote “Elri was born 500 trine ago” next to them in the margin. He frowned, worrying that the comment might be too subtle. He decided to tack on a “… so ???”, which in turn made him wonder whether he had put too many question marks. He didn’t want to crush the spirit of a blossoming young scholar, but also that sentence hadn’t really made sense.

He dropped his pen and balled his hand into a fist a few times. He wished he could use dream-etching when he was grading, but the one time he’d tried, he had, in a flurry of annotations, accidentally set the student’s paper on fire. 

Hand cramps aside, the stack of papers on the desk wasn’t going to grade itself. Kylan picked up his pen and looked at the next sentence. _The dictionary defines poetry as…_

Blessedly, a crashing sound came from deep within the stacks, saving Kylan from having to read the rest of the sentence. _No, not blessedly_ , he thought. _Someone might have gotten hurt._ Still, he would have to put the stack of essays aside in order to investigate. Alas.

Kylan had expected to find a confused library patron standing beside a pile of books that had tumbled from the shelf, not an entire bookshelf that had tumbled upon a confused library patron, but the scene that unfurled before him was, in fact, the latter. He was so surprised that he froze in place. 

“Hello,” said the patron, sprawled out on her back beneath the collapsed shelf. She unburied a hand from beneath a pile of books and waved it. “Sorry for the noise.”

“What happened?” Kylan managed to ask at last. 

“I needed a book on the top shelf, so I fluttered up to it, but the book was stuck, and I kind of tried pushing against the shelf with my feet to tug it out and somehow I ended up here like this.”

Her tone was remarkably pert for someone in her current predicament. “Are your… bones okay?” Kylan asked. _Is that a normal question?_ Hmm, maybe it wasn’t.

But she answered nonetheless, before he could rephrase. “Oh, yes, I think so,” she said, blowing a stray piece of hair out of her eyes. “The weight of the shelf is more or less evenly distributed across my ribcage, and I held my breath and tensed my muscles as I fell, so I think my torso managed to absorb most of the shock without anything breaking.”

She spoke so quickly that it took him a few extra seconds to process, and even then he wasn’t completely sure he understood. “Are you a med student?” he asked. “Or, like, a physics major or something?”

“I was,” she said, flicking her head a little to try to move the hair that was still stubbornly stuck in her eyes. “I actually triple-majored in undergrad. Physics, mathematics, and anthropology. But I’m doing my Master’s now. In Journalism.”

Kylan shifted his gaze from the woman sprawled on the floor to the pile of books that covered her limbs and framed her face. He skimmed the titles. “You’re writing an expose on… medieval Dousan poetry?”

“Well, no,” she began, “I was actually doing research on the impact of increased sea trade on the habitat of the dubabub, when I remembered this performance art piece I saw a few trine ago, where you stood in this black room with twenty other people while dubabub noises played in the background and then they would sporadically project these melting clocks onto the walls?” She stopped briefly to frown once more at the stray piece of hair on her face, then shrugged and continued. “Anyway, _that_ reminded me about this book I read on the conception of time in the medieval world as _cyclical_ rather than _linear_ , and I wanted to read it again, so here I am.”

“Oh, actually, the nature of time in Dousan poetry is a fascinating topic,” said Kylan, bending down to sift through the books. He was fairly certain he knew which one she was talking about, but couldn’t quite remember the name. “Some people say that the Dousan were influenced by the urRu, but others say that, no, the Dousan eschewed both the urRu and the Skeksis, and, well, as you know, many people don’t even believe that the urRu ever existed…”

“Yes,” the woman said from the floor beside him, “urRu time spirals, said to trace back to the urSkeks themselves. If _they_ really existed. Is that what you’re studying? Dousan poetry?”

“Uh, no, not Dousan specifically. More comparative, medieval poetry across the seven class. But I took a course in my first term and… uh actually, should we remove the bookshelf?” Kylan asked.

“Oh yes, probably,” the woman replied. “Although I’ve gotten weirdly comfortable in this position.” She blew the hair again, and he absent-mindedly reached over and tucked it behind her ear.

Now that he was close, he felt like he recognized her from somewhere. It took a moment for him to realize that she looked like his landlady, Tavra. He thought about asking her about it, but was concerned that it might be an impolite question. Plus, they really needed focus on the bookshelf. 

“Are you thinking about bookshelf-removal strategy?” the woman asked, snapping him back to attention. 

He thought about saying yes to cover up for the fact he had probably been staring at her for too long, but then realized he would actually have to have a strategy to back that up with. “Uh, just lift it up, I guess?” 

“Do you think you have the upper body strength?”

“Uh…” he said, looking down at first one arm, then the other. 

“I mean,” she said quickly, blushing, “I know I probably wouldn’t. I spend all my time reading and things. Not lifting weights or whatever.” She refocused her eyes on the ceiling. “Although if the adrenaline kicks in…”

Kylan let her ramble on while eying the shelf. It actually didn’t seem that heavy. Especially if she’d been able to tip it over in the first place. His upper body strength managed to pry it up a few inches. “Can you scooch out?” he asked, half holding his breath.

“I think so.” She rolled over onto her stomach, a thud of books dropping to the foor where they had covered her body, and crawled herself to freedom. Kylan’s upper body strength released the bookshelf and took what was, in his opinion, a well-deserved break.

“Well, then,” said the woman, dusting herself off. “All my bones do seem to be in order. Thank you. I can clean up here. I don’t want to keep you from what you were doing.”

“Oh no don’t keep me from my grading,” Kylan said aloud in a flat voice before he could filter. The woman raised an eyebrow in response, then stifled a laugh. “Uh, let me help you with the bookshelf at least,” he said.

Between the two of them, they managed to harnass enough upper body strength for the task. Which left about a hundred books lying on the floor, almost certainly randomized from their original order.

“It really is a lot of books for one person to put away,” Kylan said.

“Sounds like I might have to keep you from your grading for a little longer,” the woman said with a smile.

******

Brea had obviously _read_ many library books in her lifetime, but she had rarely put any of them _back_. She had always just left them on the carts (or, she had to admit, to her chagrin, on miscellaneous tables or even on the floor) for the library staff to re-shelve. But she could hardly leave the contents of an entire shelf lying on the floor, and she decided to let the experience of sorting them all out serve as a lesson to herself for her previous carelessness. And at least she had help, from the nice man who had extracted her from the bookshelf and, who had, quite frankly, provided her with some interesting conversation during her brief imprisonment.

The man—he looked Spriton maybe, or Stonewood—shelved the books with a practiced hand. Halfway through their task, he tilted a book in her direction so that she could see the cover: _Sands of Time: Cyclical Calendars in Dousan Literature during the Age of Harmony_. “Is this it?” he asked.

She recognized the cover immediately. “Yes,” she said, taking it from him. “This is the culprit that caused this whole bookshelf situation in the first place.”

“No wonder you had trouble pulling that book out,” said the man. “It was improperly shelved. It should be in the oversize section.”

His voice was kind, but she heard a hint of sternness creep in when he discussed improper shelving. _Oh no, what if he’s one of of the poor staff members I’ve tortured all these years?_ “Oh,” she said casually, “do you work here?”

“No, I just spend all my time here,” he said, sliding PN 1031.53 next to PN 1031.58. “I have a carrel in the back. By the window.”

Brea peeked around the corner towards the place where he had gestured. All of the carrels were empty, save for one, which was covered with enough papers to make up for all the rest. “Is it the one with the three separate piles of paper that appear as if they would come up to my waist if you stacked them all together?” she asked.

He winced. “Yeah, that’s the grading.”

“And the smallest stack? The one about two inches thick? That would be…”

“The _Done_ pile, yeah.”

“I’m so sorry,” she said, at last remembering to set down Sands of Time so she could help him with the rest of the books. “What about your work? You’re working on a thesis or something, right?” If he was grading he had to be a graduate student; he was certainly too young to be a professor.

“Dissertation. And I get a chance to work on it every now and then. But I need to TA for my fellowship, and my advisor really likes assigning essays to her undergrads every week or so, and there are two hundred students in her big lecture course, so…”

“ _Two hundred_? And there are no other TAs?”

“No, just me. My advisor is supposed to do some of it, but she just kind of ‘forgets’ so I have to do it all.”

 _Two hundred papers_. From an advisor who was supposed to be helping him _finish_ his dissertation. “Why, that’s _unjust_ ,” Brea said, slamming a book into place. 

The man peeked at the book she had just shelved, gently stretched out a hand to remove it, and then with a swift motion turned it right-side-up before sliding it back in again. “It’s just the way things are,” he said.

Brea had to admit that she had never had to TA for anything or particularly _work_ for financial compensation in any way. Maybe that _was_ how things were. “Are all advisors like that?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so? I mean, she assigns the undergrads essays every week. When I was an undergrad it was usually just a midterm and a final. But everyone’s different I guess.”

“But it’s your advisor’s job to make sure that you _succeed_ , and you need time for your own research to…” Brea heard her own rant echoing down the aisles and paused. Library employee or no, the man _did_ seem to possess an undercurrent of sternness about library decorum, and she didn't want to offend him further. “I just realized I should probably be a little more quiet.”

“No,” he said with a laugh. “No one ever comes into this whole section. Just me and the medieval poetry.”

“Oh,” Brea replied. “Well, I hope you never choke or pass out or anything, or no one would ever find you.” She furrowed her brow. _Wait, is that a normal thing that people say? Maybe it’s not a normal thing that people say._

“I do have roommates,” said the man, “so one of them would probably come looking for my corpse at some point.” Brea nodded knowingly in response. _Guess this is a normal conversation._

“Well, I hope they find you _before_ you’re a corpse,” she concluded. _Conversation successful._ “And I hope your advisor lightens up.”

“Yeah, me too,” he said. “Both the advisor thing and the, uh, corpse thing.” He slid the next-to-final book back into position on the shelf, and she slid the final one in next to it. She realized shortly after the fact that she had forgotten to check the call number, but when she examined it, it happened to be in the right spot anyway. Probably due to the distribution of books before they fell being reflected to some extent in the pile on the floor. There would be only some minor randomization really.

She picked up _Sands of Time_ and hugged it to her chest. Now that all of the books had been carefully reshelved, she felt a surprising sense of accomplishment. She hadn’t done it alone of course. “Thanks,” she said. “I’m glad I had some help with this.”

“As you’ve noticed, I was looking for a distraction,” the man said. He nodded towards _Sands of Time._ “Are you going to check that out?”

“Oh, I was just going to…” _bring it back to my table on the first floor, read it for a little while, and then leave it there for someone else to reshelve._ “Uh, well, I’ll probably leaf through it a bit here, and then put it back. In the oversize section, right? Where’s the oversize section again?”

He pointed down the aisle past the stairwell to a semi-partitioned annex. “Can’t miss it,” he said.

“Thanks,” Brea replied. “For the directions and the… shelf rescue.”

“And thank you for distracting me from my work,” he said. “I mean that sincerely. I really needed a break.”

“Well, I’d better let you get back to it,” she said. “I’ll see you around?”

“Yeah,” he said with a smile. 

Brea gave a little wave and made her way to the oversize section. She meant to skim through _Sands of Time_ quickly before getting back to work on the first floor, but before she knew it over an hour had passed. She quickly reshelved the book in its proper spot and walked briskly towards the stairwell, trying to make up for lost time.

She paused abruptly at the stairwell door, realizing all of a sudden that she hadn’t asked her shelf-rescuer for his name. _Well, he did have two hundred essays to grade, so he’s probably still there_. She moved silently through the aisle, trying to respect the quiet of the library, and peeked over at his carrel. 

He was fast asleep. She thought briefly of waking him up, but thought that might be creepy. She then thought about leaving a note, but that might also be creepy? Maybe she could rifle through his stuff and try to find his ID. _All right Brea, even you know that’s definitely creepy._

Anyway, she knew his carrel was here, so she could just come back tomorrow when he was awake. But before she could turn away, he shivered once in his sleep, and then again. Brea thought about placing his coat around his shoulders… but that would be creepy too, right? 

But he kept shivering, and she didn’t want him to die alone in a back corner of the library. In fact, they had already discussed that exact scenario earlier, and she was fairly certain he was in agreement with her on that point. So she picked up the coat, brown and woolen and ankle-length, good for the Ha’rar snow and for doubling as a makeshift blanket, and slung it over his shoulders as gently as possible before quietly sneaking back down the stairwell to her table on the first floor, which was strewn with about a dozen books, a notebook, and her coat.

The first floor was well-lit and filled with patrons bustling in and out of the front door, making for a stark contrast with the dimness of the sixth floor. And yet there had been a warmth up there amongst the old books, and with, perhaps, a new friend. Even if the old books had tried to kill her. 

Brea noted the late hour, and began to pack up her things. She wanted to head home before midnight, and she needed to start now if she was going to put away all of these books before she left.


	2. Outside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second and final part of this thing. Brace yourselves for excitement--detailed discussions of academic research ahead ;)

******

Brea’s plan was to first read a book on dubabub biology for her background research ( _Dubabubs from Dub to Bub: The Complete Anatomy and Physiology_ ), then skim through the latest anthropology periodicals in the new releases room, and then once _evening_ had suitably passed into _night_ , go upstairs to look for the man from the day before. She was anxious to finally get his name, but reasoned that in the lack of any other information the best probability of finding him in the same spot as yesterday was to check at the same _time_ as yesterday, and so she planned to wait until after dark.

Her plan, however, didn’t quite work, because she couldn’t focus on the dubabubs book at _all_ , and although she forced herself to the end of it, she skipped the periodical room completely and instead found herself climbing the stairwell to the sixth floor just as the last sun dipped below the horizon, before the sky had darkened fully into night.

 _Oh, maybe I should have brought him a coffee or something_ , she thought as she took the stairs two at a time. _As a thank you for yesterday._ Although, to be honest, he had looked like he could use a good meal. Maybe some takeout? _But oh, not in the library, that’s against the rules. Don't want to attract book-ants or parchment-voles or whatever._

Brea pushed open the stairwell door and stepped into the low fluorescent light of the sixth floor. At first she heard nothing but the hum of the crystal radiator vibrating through the wall, but as she tilted her ears forward, she caught the rustling of papers from the back corner. 

She quickened her pace into a flutter and, expertly navigating the aisles, soon found herself beside his carrel. Her wings rippled the stale air as she dropped to the floor. The flow of air, ever so slight, rustled the top paper on one of his stacks, blowing it askew and drawing his attention as he turned to grab it. 

“Hi again,” Brea said.

“Oh,” said the man, blinking up at her. “You’re back.”

“I am,” she said, unsure how to interpret _You’re back._ He did seem very busy with his work, and he probably didn’t need to be distracted two nights in a row. “I’m sorry,” she began, “maybe I shouldn’t have…”

“No,” he said, absentmindedly rightening the paper she had blown out of position. “No, I’m glad you’re here. Thanks. Thanks for coming.” He began straightening another stack of papers, as if tidying up the house for company. _That’s sweet_ , Brea thought, her uncertainty melting away into a smile. _But also a little sad._

“I just wanted to say thank you for yesterday,” she began, “and I thought maybe I’d bring you some takeout or something? But there’s no eating in the library, and you seem to place great value on library rules, which I completely respect about you, of course. But I also thought maybe a coffee, which, I know the signs say _no food or beverages_ , but coffee won’t, like, leave crumbs and attract book-ants or parchment-voles or whatever, so…”

 _Where am I going with this? Wrap it up Brea._ “So I guess I’m asking if you approve of yourself drinking coffee in the library? Or not. Not is totally fine too. No pressure.”

His tired eyes blinked again, his head resting heavily on one hand. “Well, you’re right about the book-ants,” he said, post-blink. “They’re a menace. But if I didn’t drink coffee up here I would have dropped out long ago.”

“Got it,” Brea said with a nod. “Coffee’s okay, don’t want you to drop out, going to run to the coffee shop across the plaza, be right back.”

“You didn’t need to…”

But before he could finish she was off. One, two, three steps into another flutter, all the way back to the stairwell, where she dropped any pretext of decorum and drifted straight down the open center to the ground floor. 

Fortunately the hour—after dinner but before people re-caffeinated for their all-nighters—was such that the coffee shop was practically empty. Brea ordered, paid, and was back in the library within ten minutes. She had on multiple past occasions learned the lesson that she shouldn't fly with a tray full of hot coffee, so this time she took the elevator and walked carefully down the aisles back to the carrel. 

“You didn’t need to do this,” the man said as Brea set his cup down in front of him. But he was too tired, apparently, to hide a small smile. 

“I got you a medium,” she said. “And I didn’t add any milk or sugar because I thought that if the coffee spilled, the milk and sugar might attract the book-ants.”

“I always drink it black anyway,” he said, wrapping his hands around the cup. “Are you… going to stay?”

“Would you mind?” 

“I think we’ve established I’d do anything to get a break from all this,” he said, waving his hand at the papers in front of him. “Not that you’re _anything_ ,” he added quickly. “Er, I mean, it’d be nice if you stayed for a little bit.”

Brea pulled over a chair from a nearby empty carrel, careful to tuck her wings through the gap in the back, then took a sip from her cup. She tried not to make a face. She did _not_ usually drink her coffee black. “So what are you working on?” she asked.

“Oh, you know, the grading.”

“Ah, no. I mean what’s _your_ research about? You said something about comparative poetry, right?”

“Are you sure you’re interested in that?” he asked. “Very few people are.”

“Of course I am,” Brea replied, trying not to be offended. “I’m always interested in things.”

“Including medieval poetry?”

“I _have_ read _Sands of Time_ twice now, so.”

He smiled from where he sat slumped around his coffee. “My dissertation doesn’t focus on medieval conceptions of time, unfortunately. It’s about dream-arts.”

“Like dreamfasting?” she asked.

“Yes and no,” he said, sitting up a little straighter, his eyes waking up for the first time since she’d arrived. “There are all these references in medieval poetry, some rather oblique, that describe the songteller making images dance before the crowd’s eyes as if in a dreamfast. And also some references to characters in the songs using forms of dreamfasting to see the future, or even for healing and… this probably sounds very illogical to you.” 

“Dreamfasting itself is illogical,” Brea said. “We still don’t really know how it works, just that it’s connected to the Crystal somehow. So who knows what the Gelfling of the past used it for.”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” he said. “Through poetry anyway. And…”

“What is it?”

“This may sound a little silly, but I sometimes wonder if we could rediscover those arts.”

“It’s not silly,” said Brea, sploshing a little coffee onto herself as she leaned back in her chair to emphasize her point. The man handed her a napkin from the tray, which she absentmindedly took before continuing. “If we’re allowing for the possibility that Gelfling could do these things in the past, I don’t see why we couldn’t do them now. What’s the latest reference that you’ve found on these special dream-arts?”

“About four hundred trine ago?” he said.

“Four hundred trine is hardly enough time for the Gelfling to have changed fundamentally in a biological sense,” Brea said, giving the coffee stain a few distracted wipes. “There’s actually evidence that our genetic codes can drift relatively quickly in response to environmental factors, but even that is on a scale of a thousand trine or so. And I can’t imagine an environmental factor so great that it would cause all Gelfling everywhere to lose these special abilities so quickly.”

“That might be an interesting angle to bring in,” the man said. “Do you know any books I could look into?”

 _Do I know any books…_ “Here,” Brea said, grabbing his pen and the coffee receipt. “I’ll write you a list.” But although she scribbled, nothing came out. “The pen is dead,” she said, rummaging through her pockets. _I know I had a pen around here somewhere._

“I can jot it down,” he said, taking the receipt. “Just tell me the titles.”

“Oh, well the first one is _Children of the Crystal: Gelfling Adaptation through the…_ You’re not holding a pen.”

“Ah, no. I was just going to…” He swept his hand across the paper and, with a glow of blue, the letters burnt right into it.

“ _What?_ ” Brea grabbed the receipt and held it up to the light to examine it. “This whole conversation about lost dream-arts and here you could do this the whole time.”

“Dream-etching isn’t _lost_ per se…”

Brea placed the dream-etched receipt back down on the desk. “I mean, obviously I’ve heard that some people can still dream-etch, but I’ve never met anyone who could. So I guess it was lost to me.” 

“Yeah, I learned it from my dad? He uses it to engrave the instruments he makes. He’s a musician, but he carves medieval-style instruments too. Fircas and things.”

That opened up an entirely new line of questions. But before she could ask him for his entire family history, he placed his hand back over the receipt. “You said there were a few others?”

Brea set her questions aside and quickly listed the remainder of the books, tilting her head once or twice to try to see what happened between hand and paper as he etched the titles into the receipt.

“Thanks,” he said, holding up the finished list. “I can’t wait until I get the chance to look at these.”

 _Probably best if I let him finish then_ , Brea thought, surprising herself a little bit at her own considerateness. “Maybe I should let you get back to work.”

He eyed the tallest stack of papers, which Brea assumed was the _To Do_ pile. “Or we could talk about literally anything else,” he said. 

The offer to talk about literally anything was certainly very tempting. But that would not help him write his dissertation any faster. “Why don’t we at least go find these books?” she said. “Third floor. I know the Anthropology collection fairly well.”

The man left his notebooks and coat on the desk, but shoved his grading into his backpack before grabbing his coffee. As they worked their way down the back stairwell, Brea realized that she still hadn’t asked him his name. _Is that a weird thing to ask at this point?_

It did seem kind of odd to just drop in with _By the way, what’s your name?_ when they’d known each other for two days and she already knew that his father was a professional firca-maker who had taught him how to dream-etch. But each minute that passed just would just make it weirder to ask, and she’d already decided that she wasn’t going to root through his stuff when he wasn’t looking, so she’d just have to go for it. 

Just as she opened her mouth to speak, the man spoke instead. “So,” he asked, “do you have any siblings?” 

“Oh yes,” she said, her train of thought thrown by the question. “Two sisters.”

The man gave her a sideways look and then asked in a tentative voice, “Is one of them named Tavra by any chance?”

 _That’s strange. How did he figure that out? I guess we kind of look alike. But wait…_ “How do you know Tavra?” she asked.

“This is going to sound weird,” he replied, “but I think I live in her house?”

Brea grabbed the cool metal handrail for balance as she stopped short. She remembered Tavra and Onica having a Spriton tenant, and she remembered Onica describing him as “the worst.” 

But the person standing beside her in the library stairwell didn’t seem like the worst. _Never fear the truth_ , she thought, steeling herself. “Tolyn?” she asked.

“Tolyn?” the man repeated, casting a confused look over his shoulder. “Oh, you mean me? No, my name’s Kylan.” 

“Oh, thank Thra,” Brea said before she could stop herself. 

“Uh, actually, Tolyn and I went to the same high school, in Sami Thicket.”

 _Oh no, I finally learned his name but I’ve just insulted his friend._ Although all he had said was that they’d attended the same school. _Gather all your data before forming conclusions, Brea_. “Oh,” she said casually, “were you two friends?”

The man—Kylan—choked on his coffee a little bit. “No,” he said through a coughing fit. “I mean, no? We were both in the school band. He was a senior when I was a freshman. Anyway, we’re on this, like, band alum group online and he posted an ad for the room when he moved out last month, and that’s how I found out about it.”

“Well, that’s good,” Brea said. She realized she had stopped next to the third floor door and pushed it open for him. “What’s Tavra like as a landlady?” 

“She’s… terse?” Kylan said, peeking out onto the floor to see if anyone was there before continuing the conversation. “Honestly, I was a little scared of her at first.”

“That’s fair,” said Brea, thinking of Tavra’s polite but clipped manner when speaking to customer service representatives, or to guests at Mother’s fancy parties or to, say, supermarket clerks gesturing wildly at displays cereal boxes that certain younger sisters had knocked all over the floor. “She’s really a big softie though. She was the only person in the family I could rely on for hugs growing up.”

Kylan glanced back and forth a few times between Brea and the row of leather-bound books on the shelf in front of them before coming up with, “Oh. That’s… nice?”

 _Oh, that came out sadder than I meant it_ , she realized. “I mean, I love them all,” she rushed. “Mother and Seladon too. We’re happy. Just… formal.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” he said, turning back to the shelf. 

Brea watched him trace a finger across the call numbers, and sighed a little into herself. _Of course, if he knows Tavra…_ “You’ll know who my mother is then,” she said. “That’s a shame.” She spotted _Children of the Crystal_ above Kylan’s head, pulled it out, and handed it to him.

“No, it’s okay,” he said, taking the book. “I was a little judgy there.” His smile was kind, and he returned to silence rather than make remarks—one way or another—about how he was talking to the daughter of the Chair of the High Council. 

Brea mirrored his smile almost without realizing it. She reached over and began flipping through _Children of the Crystal_ while he balanced the open book in his hands. 

“Here,” she said, finding Chapter Three. “I’d recommend starting here. The first chapter is the author going on about his previous four books, and then the second is just an overview of Gelfling history—nothing you wouldn’t find in an undergrand survey course. I’d skip them, if you’re strapped for time.”

“Thanks,” Kylan said. “I wish I could read this right now.” Brea felt her stomach tighten at his words. She had always been able to read whatever she wanted to whenever she wanted to. _It’s not fair_ , she thought. But she didn’t know what to do about it.

“Are you okay?” he asked. Brea still had her hand sprawled over the open book in his arms, and in her sympathy she felt herself lean in on him, a friendly gesture more than anything else, the edge of her arm pressed against the edge of his.

A bell dinged once, the sound echoing through the silent floor, followed by the clunking of elevator doors. Brea took a step away from Kylan, and he from her, folding _Children of Thra_ against his chest. 

“I guess I’ll stop distracting you,” Brea said.

“No, that’s—”

“I need to stop distracting you,” she said, expertly finding the remaining three books on the list and stacking them up in his arms, “so can finish your grading, so that you can work on _your research_. Because it’s very interesting and I want to know what you find.” 

“All right,” he said. “Uh, actually, before you go, what’s your name?”

 _Oh see, it’s not that weird to ask this late in the game._ She filed the realization away for future occasions. “It’s Brea. Sorry, I should have told you that sooner.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Brea,” he said. “Officially.”

“I’d say rescuing someone from beneath a collapsed bookshelf is fairly official, wouldn’t you?”

“It was pretty memorable at least,” he grinned from behind the pile of books. “And I’m glad I had company during coffee tonight. You know, in case I choked or something.” 

Brea realized that he was joking, but the memory of him shivering alone at his desk the previous night drifted back into her mind. “I’m in the library most nights,” she said. “Maybe I could check in on you every now and then. Make sure you’re not a corpse.”

“I’d like that,” he replied.

Brea dropped him off at the elevator before entering the main stairwell. She once again squeezed past the railing and let herself drop down the center space, passing a few other bleary-eyed young women along the way. 

Despite her slight deviation from her original plan, everything had gone well—better than planned, even. Exchange of names achieved, thank-you achieved, and even better, she’d been able to help him with his work, even if only in a small way. And the only casualty of the evening had been a single coffee-stained shirt, hardly the first garment in her wardrobe to meet such a fate.

 _Conversation successful_ , Brea concluded as she fluttered slowly down to the first floor.

******

Kylan dreamed he was a tree, and that he was chopped down, pulped, pressed into paper, and used for an undergraduate essay. Shuffled from backpack to backpack, he ended up lying flat on a carrel desk in a lonely corner of the library, staring up at a weary TA who was, in a twist of dream-logic, none other than Kylan himself. He lay there, the stark fluorescent light bouncing off of his two-dimensional body, as the giant Gelfling above him scraped note after note upon his face with a cold, sharp pen.

 _I miss the forest_ , thought his paper-self. _The forest was never this silent, or as sterile, or as humiliating_. An eternity of silence, except for the hum of the lights, the scratching of the pen. Paper-Kylan had long given up any hope when the Gelfling-Kylan looming above him swiveled his ears, then turned to his left, as if looking for someone. And then, at last, paper-Kylan dissolved into nothingness.

“Oh thank Thra,” said Brea as Kylan opened his eyes. “I didn’t think you were actually dead, but…”

Kylan thought at first he might still be a piece of paper, his Gelfling grader now replaced by Brea, before realizing that he had fallen asleep with his head on the desk. “Are you still here?” she asked. “It’s so late.”

“What are _you_ still doing here?” he asked groggily, not bothering to lift his head. He hoped his question didn’t come across the wrong way. It was honestly nice to hear a friendly voice. He just hadn’t expected to hear it at… his eyes searched for the wall clock but he was facing the wrong direction and he was too tired to turn to look.

“I was about to leave the library when I glanced at the New Fiction section by the check-out desk, and the next thing I knew I had read one third of five different novels and it was past midnight.” Brea pulled over a nearby chair, her usual one, and sat down beside him. 

“But what are you doing _here_?” he asked. “You should have just gone home.” _No those aren’t the right words either._ Well, he was fairly sure his tone was one of genuine curiousity, and she didn’t seem offended.

“I don’t know,” she said, “I just had a feeling I should check up on you.”

Kylan managed to heave a sleep-weary hand onto the stack of papers in front of him. “I thought I would finish these tonight, but…” He was too tired to finish his sentence, which was fine because he was distracted by the look on Brea’s face anyway. He was usually fairly good at reading people’s emotions but he had never seen this particular combination of pity and anger and helplessness before. 

“You should tell your advisor to give you a break,” she spat out in a rushed exhale. “Or… is there, like, a chair, or a dean, or _someone_ who can go over her head?”

“I don’t know,” he replied, his focus fading into the middle distance. “I mean, yeah. But it could still end up with me losing my position and getting, like, shunned from the academic world of medieval poetry. I don’t know. She just, has a lot a of power, and I have none.”

The look of helplessness pushed aside those of pity and anger and spread over her face. “Well, I hate that,” she said. The helplessness reigned about half a second longer before she hardened her face and picked up one of the papers from his _To Do_ stack and cast an eye over it. “Let me do this one,” she said.

“You mean grade it?” Even one less paper was… severely tempting. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not sure if that’s ethical or not.”

“What’s _not_ ethical is assigning so many papers to a single grader. Not ethical towards you _or_ the students.”

He hadn’t thought of it that way before. He was about to say as much, but Brea was already busy fishing through her bag for her laptop. “Look,” she said, plopping her computer in front of him and navigating through an endless maze of finder windows. “I’m good at writing papers. I didn’t take this exact course as an undergraduate, but I did take a medieval literature class, and here,” she said, as a document filled the screen. “Here’s my final paper.”

His eyes were tired, but they were drawn in by her first line. _Although the Gelfling have “traditionally” sorted ourselves into seven separate clans, as we travel back in time through the lens of literature, such signs of division melt away before dissolving completely in our earliest songs and stories._ Before he knew it, he had read the whole thing. “If all of these papers were as good as this one my life would be so much easier,” he said. 

“It wasn’t meant as a brag,” she replied. She had picked up another student paper and was already skimming through it. “It was meant as a… job interview?”

Kylan watched her eyes scan the paper. It felt oddly natural to have her here in his corner of the library, plopping laptops in front of him and helping herself to his endless stacks of grading. He could hardly believe that it had only been two weeks since he’d found her lying on the floor under a pile of books. But still. “I can’t make you do this,” he said.

“I _want_ to,” she replied, placing her free hand on his. The anger came back into her face, but not the pity, and tempered into resolve as she spoke. “You’re smart and you have good ideas, and you deserve the time to work on your own project.” 

Kylan sat still for a minute as his tired brain processed her words, and processed how close she was sitting. Then he leaned in and took the student’s paper out of her hand and put it… somewhere. He was too busy kissing her to pay attention to where. 

“I… well, that wasn’t quite the job I was interviewing for,” she said when they broke apart. “But I’ll take it if it’s available.”

 _What did I just do?_ “This is… really weird timing,” he began. “Maybe I shouldn’t have…”

“No, it’s perfect timing,” she said, giving his hand a squeeze. “And I think we should do it again.” She leaned back in towards him, but swerved at the last second and placed her free hand on the _To Do_ pile. “But let’s finish these first. Just to get them out of the way. And then we can go get some sleep. Or you can get some sleep and I can get some sleep also. Or we can do whatever.”

“No,” he said, falling into the certainty of the word. “I’m done with grading today. It’s the middle of the night. You’re right. We should be sleeping. Or whatever.”

“What will you tell your advisor?”

“That I didn’t have time to finish. That’s just the truth.”

“I still want to help,” Brea said, her eyes running back over the piles of paper on the desk. 

“You’re still going to help,” he replied. “If you want to. Just… hold on.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a stack of papers much smaller than his pile of graded essays, but slightly thicker than his current _To Do_ pile. 

“Is this your dissertation?” she asked, taking it when offered.

“Chapter one. About half of chapter four is finished too. The rest is all outline. It’s kind of a mess right now. Probably not an easy read, so if you don’t want to…”

“No, I’m honored,” she said, already skimming the first page. “I mean, I’m not an expert, but…”

“I’d like the thoughts of a non-specialist. I might try to publish the thing as a book someday, and I’d like to reach as many people as possible. And I don’t want it to to be too boring…”

“It’s already not boring,” she said, flipping to the second page.

“Ah, you don’t have to read it all now.” He found, in general, her tendency to get absorbed into things rather endearing, but also he was very much ready to get out of the library.

“Of course,” she said. She slid his dissertation draft carefully in her bag, and closed up her laptop as well. “Why don’t I walk you home?”

“Okay,” he said, jamming his papers into his bag and pulling on his overcoat. “Will you tell me about your article on the way? All I know is that it’s about dubabubs and that it reminded you of a series of other things that made you go looking for a book on a completely unrelated topic.”

“Oh, certainly. Actually I _did_ manage to work in a quote from _Sands of Time._ ” She pushed the elevator button and recited over the series of dings as the elevator rose directly to their floor. “ _The suns spin in an endless dance, and the moons dance with them, and so does all of Thra. So too do the beasts that dwell in our world dance around one another, and the Gelfling one beast among many. And the pattern repeats_. And then I transition into how in modern times the expansion of sea trade has thrown off the pattern…” 

The elevator arrived, empty, and a few moments later, they passed together through the double-doors of the library and out into the chilly Ha’rar night. As Brea took his hand in hers, Kylan realized that as close as they’d gotten over the past few weeks, they’d never actually been together outside of the library before. 

Outside of the library was good. The air was cold but fresh, and the night quiet, without the constant hum of the crystal radiator in the walls. The twin moonlight shimmered with a clarity far gentler than fluorescent lighting of the sixth floor. Brea’s description of the shrinking dubabub habitat was indeed alarming, but if a single person could take on the entire shipping industry, it would be Brea, so he set that concern aside along with all others and let himself enjoy every moment of the walk home. 

His bag was, as always, heavy with a whole ream of papers that would be waiting for him in the morning, but as the moons continued their slow dance across the sky, he felt lighter than he ever had before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who read this thing. Hope it was fun at least ;)


End file.
